informed. He mentioned the great excellence of a single life. Do you maintain that the state of marriage is in itself unholy?" "Far from it," said Pamphilus : "great numbers of our bishops and priests are married men; and that they maintain marriage to be unholy, is one of the very errors for which we have excluded the heretics." Rutilius. "But are there not among you many of both sexes who live single lives, and do you not employ them in your Church-offices? Among us, you know, a single life is considered discreditable, and there are express laws against it.” "The difference between our view and yours," replied Pamphilus, "does not arise from our thinking marriage unlawful; it is the natural result of a grand contrast which there is between the Christian system and that of the heathen world. You are for the present state, we for that which is to come. Sense, therefore is your guide, - faith is ours. You measure the useful, the beautiful, and the grand, by the rule of nature,-but we by the principles of grace. Your poets, therefore, and your artists, exhibit in its utmost perfection the present loveliness of the visible creation; but what is ideal, immaterial, impalpable, they do not attempt. It would be otherwise with Christian artists. They might not equal the sculptors of Greece in exhibiting the natural form; but in representing the spiritual es sence of imaginary excellence, I should not wonder if they surpassed even the achievements of Apelles. Before the Christian poet, likewise, there open prospects, which, if not so vividly imaging forth the scenes of this world as the works of Homer, may yet aspire to a loftier view into the realities of the next. "Now what may be said of the arts is true respecting your laws and manners. Your best institutions aim merely at the stability of states, and the display of the domestic virtues. They cannot rise beyond the present state. They are but the development of natural principles. With you, therefore, a single state is looked on with discredit, because supposed to be sought only from idleness and a love of self-indulgence. It is opposed to those social excellences, which are all that your system comprehends. With us it is otherwise. Though not forgetting or undervaluing the domestic duties, we are taught that there are others of a more ennobling, though not more necessary kind. The perpetual view of the eternal world; preparation for it; the display of its principles in this adulterous and evil generation—these we feel to be a duty as binding as that of leaving children to the state, and swelling the armies of the emperor. "Now although these higher functions of our nature may be performed by married men, yet our Scriptures tell us that a single life affords peculiar advantages for their display: and therefore, though not in itself more meritorious, for no act of ours in reality merits any thing, yet we consider that a single life, when entered upon with a view to God's service, tends most to the display of that angelic nature of which it is our object to afford an example to mankind. "Then you must remember how many persons join us from disgust at the profligacy of their heathen relations, and are anxious for some employment which may give a new object to their wounded affections. We bind them, as you know, by no promise-they may even leave us if they choose; but we give them an opportunity of serving God in a manner which, except among ourselves, is absolutely unknown. And perhaps the great contrast between the self-denial which such persons generally adopt, and the gross selfishness of the world around, may have led some of our writers to use exaggerated language in describing their conduct. Certainly nothing has more tended to advance our cause with refined and noble spirits than the example which they afford. The heathen world needs to be startled by some great instance of self-denial. Men have grown callous in their vices; selfishness has become the professed element of their being. It is not an ordinary specimen of religion which will affect their hearts. But when they see persons of rank and fortune cast away all that they hold so valuable, and with a willing mind embrace poverty and an abstracted life for the sake of God's service, they cannot but recognise the reality of that Gospel which is proclaimed among them." They had now reached Pamphilus's house; and Rutilius left him, with a promise of calling next day. Moses taking off his shoe from his foot. From the Cemetery of St. Agnes at Rome CHAPTER XII. Story of Rutilius's Brother. The Principle of Enterpreting the Scriptures. This is got by casting pearl to hogs That bawl for freedom in their senseless mood, MILTON. CÆSAREA Contained much which was fitted to engage a young Roman, especially if he took interest in the military or civil administration of the empire. But Rutilius was not sorry when his survey of its garrison and its public tribunals was ended, and the time came at which he had resolved to renew his visit to his Christian friend. Pamphilus was alone, and closely occupied in the preparation of various manuscripts which were extended before him. "I fear I interrupt some interesting study," said the young Roman. "The subject is indeed of great interest," replied the other. "I am endeavouring to ascertain what was the original text of that translation of the Old Testament which was made by the Alexandrian Jews when the use of the Hebrew tongue began to diminish among them. The work has long been |